PROJECT 6: CORE UNITS The Core project is the central resource of the Program. It encompassesfive Subcore Units: (a) Patient Registry, which pertains to the identification, screening and induction of subjects into the Program, and entails the central database and data management for the neuroanatomical and neuropsychological data; (b) Neuroimaging and Human Neuroanatomy, which pertains to the performance of the neuroimaging studies and neuroanatomical analysis; (c) Neuropsychology, which pertains to the performance of basic neuropsychological studies; (d) Statistical Analysis, which pertains to statistical analysis as needed by different projects, in consultation with our biostatistical advisor; (e) Monitoring of Data Quality and Research Progress, which includes monitoring of all matters pertaining to subject confidentiality, informed consent procedures, data quality and research progress. The Core project also provides all of the Human Subjects information pertaining to the projects that involve subjects aged 18 or older (Projects 1, 2, 4, and 5) (younger subjects are covered separately in Project 3). These operations are essential for the execution of all studies in our Program, and they are carried out continuously across the execution of the research in the Program. These functions have been conducted, in all aspects,for the duration of the Program, and they remain largely unchanged for the new funding period. Under Subscore 2 and 3, the Program investigators have continued to develop new techniques required to improve the quality of neuroanatomical and neuropsychological data gathering and analysis. As a result, new products are now available, to this research group and to others, for cognitive neuroscience research (e.g., single-channel tissue segmentation, 3-dimensional lesion analysis in a standard anatomical space (the MAP-3 technique)); neuropsychological tests and stimuli). Developing such new techniques and obtaining new information relative to normal populations (such as neuroanatomical variations related to aging or gender) are some of the notable accomplishments of the Core project.